


the good side of things

by someflowers (orphan_account)



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Established Relationship, F/M, Kissing, Nervousness, Talking, Third Year Tsukishima Kei, Third Year Yachi Hitoka
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-05
Updated: 2021-02-05
Packaged: 2021-03-17 12:14:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,213
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29225283
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/someflowers
Summary: Tsukishima takes a moment to breathe. Yachi takes a Buzzfeed quiz.
Relationships: Tsukishima Kei/Yachi Hitoka
Comments: 8
Kudos: 65





	the good side of things

**Author's Note:**

> Of _course_ the ship I'm most invested in is a rarepair. To live is to suffer after all.
> 
> [♫](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ay4S61byZo).

The day after they lose the tournament a second time, Tsukishima doesn’t show up at practice.

In fact, as Hitoka learns from Yamaguchi after practice is over, Tsukishima hadn’t shown up at school altogether. Hitoka frowns, and tries to recall the previous day’s events.

On the bus ride back home, nobody had spoken a word; granted, most of them were fast asleep, but Tsukishima had stared out the window in silence, and though he’d held Hitoka’s hand all the way back to the school, he hadn’t met her eyes at all, and only whispered a quiet, _I’ll call you later_ , before bounding back home.

It’s 5 PM now—practice ended unsurprisingly earlier than usual today—and she hasn’t received a word from Tsukishima. It’s not something that usually worries her; Tsukishima is not one to text, or call, unless there is absolutely a reason to. This is something that Hitoka has known long before they’d become what they are today.

It’s still a little bizarre to think about what they’d _become_ at all; what had evolved from studying at each other’s houses to staying late enough for dinner, and walking each other back home side by side to eventually holding hands on the roads where the street lights don’t work, and her first name slipping out of his mouth, which—with his cheeks bright red—Tsukishima blamed on his clumsy tongue, to Yachi sputtering wildly when she’d called him by _his_ , and Tsukishima hugging her goodnight to dropping a slow, measured kiss on the top of her head before seeing her up to her apartment.

Tsukishima is better at communicating by touch than he is with words, so Hitoka is not _usually_ concerned about his quietude. Except…

Hitoka can’t help thinking back to his eyes the day before, dull and empty; and though everyone had been disappointed, too, his eyes were devoid of any emotion at all. Hitoka knows he cares about volleyball now, far from the listless Tsukishima that he had been in his first year.

As soon as the gymnasium is locked up, she runs straight for his house.

☾

Akiteru lets her in, and he frowns as he gestures to his brother’s bedroom door, closed and, she presumes, locked. The frown looks a little out of place on Akiteru’s usual smiling face, and Hitoka’s worry returns full-fledged as she thinks about what Tsukishima might have said or might _not_ have said when he’d returned home the day before.

She knocks once on his bedroom door with no response. After a third knock, Tsukishima’s tired voice finally calls out, “Nii-chan, I said leave me alone.”

Her breath hitches in her throat, and she manages a quiet, “Kei-kun. It’s me.”

There’s a noise that’s akin to someone falling off a chair. After a moment, Hitoka hears the turn of the lock, and the door swings open. She looks at him and her heart twists in her chest; he’s in his pajamas, but he looks tired like he hadn’t slept at all, his hair mussed up, and there are red spots around his eyes, like he’d been rubbing at them a little too hard.

“Hitoka,” he says. His voice is croaky, probably from disuse. His knees suddenly give way, and he staggers forward onto the floor.

“Oh, Kei-kun…” Hitoka reaches up to pat him gently on his cheek. “What happened to you?”

☽

“I don’t see the point of it anymore,” Kei says, deadpan. “There’s no reason to keep doing this, knowing we’re just going to lose again and again.”

Yachi has been sitting on his bed for the past twenty minutes while Kei lies down next to her, talking more than she’d ever heard him talk since before they’d developed this thing between them.

“Kei-kun,” she says, when he’s done talking and the silence between them has grown. She takes his hand in her own, turning it over and running her fingers lightly over his knuckles between the ring finger and the pinky, where a red bump forms his skin. “What’s this?”

“You know what that is,” Kei replies, confused. “When we went against Shiratorizawa…”

“And this one?” The length of his right forearm, a faint, faded scar near his elbow where the skin had torn.

“Kamomedai. Hitoka—”

“What about this one?” Her thumbs rub against his palm, where a cut had broken through just two weeks ago, before the tournament.

“Hitoka, I don’t understand what you’re…”

“Do you remember?” Yachi looks at him, her light brown eyes turning into a brilliant gold as the sunset washes over the room through the window. “Do you remember why you keep doing this?”

“It’s just… it’s so _hard_. What’s the point, really?”

“Who knows?” Yachi laughs. The question is so big, so ridiculous to squeeze an answer to. “Some people do it out of passion, to keep pushing themselves forward. Some people do it for pride. But you,” she says, tapping lightly at his chest, “you do it because it’s just part of you. Because you can’t really imagine doing—or _being_ —anything else. It’s why you joined in the first place, isn’t it?”

Kei blinks up at her. “How…”

“Coach Ukai told me,” Yachi says, smiling. “He said he saw something in you before _you_ even saw it yourself. I didn’t get it then, but after seeing you at the Shiratorizawa match…”

Kei can’t look at her. He feels his face burn, and he feels something wet on his cheeks; it takes him a moment to realise he’s crying.

“Kei-kun?” Yachi calls, but Kei is frozen, and his eyes feel heavy. He feels a pair of hands around his neck, and the last thing he hears before he falls asleep is, “I believe… I believe you were always meant to do this.”

☽

Kei opens his eyes slowly, and the bleariness settles into darkness. He blinks a few times before reaching for his glasses, folded neatly on the side table. He doesn’t remember taking them off. When his vision comes into focus, so does his hearing, and he tilts his head to the side to find Yachi seated at his desk, clicking the mouse furiously. The dim light of the computer illuminates that corner of his room.

The sight of her, sitting cross-legged on _his_ chair, in _his_ room, at _his_ desk, makes his heart do a little turn in his chest. Kei vaguely remembers her coming into his room earlier that afternoon, remembers crying into her shirt—and he feels a mixture of shame and guilt building up in his chest at that—and immediately falling asleep as soon as his head had hit the pillow. He doesn’t know what time it is right now, and he’s almost afraid to find out.

“Hitoka?” Kei calls softly, yet it’s enough to make her jump. “Hitoka-chan.”

“Eep!” Yachi gasps, letting out a sigh before turning to face him. “Kei-kun, you’re awake!”

“You’re still here.”

“Of course.” She smiles at him, and Kei feels his chest shrivel up again. “Are you feeling better?”

“Mm.” Kei nods, and lets his head hang back as he finds his bearings. Yachi turns back to the computer. “What are you doing?”

“Homework,” she says, a little too quickly.

Kei crawls out of bed and lands behind the chair. He frowns as he bends toward the screen. “That doesn’t look like homework.”

“It’s… ah… for research!” Yachi blinks up at him nervously. Kei quirks his brow at her, and it only takes a moment for her to break. “Okay, _okay_ , it’s a quiz! But to be fair, wouldn’t you want to know which popular song describes _your_ life?”

Kei stares at her for a long moment, sleep still pulling at his mind. “Hitoka, I think we both know the answer to that question.”

“It’s _scarily_ accurate. And as someone who loves music, you must be a little bit curious!”

Kei isn’t sure if it’s the dim light of his computer illuminating Yachi’s face, making her smile a million times brighter, _prettier_ , almost otherworldly. Her yellow hair, longer now from when she’d first joined the Karasuno team, hangs just below her shoulder. He lets out a shaky breath.

“Okay.” Kei subconsciously picks her up, and she lets out another _Eep!_ before he plonks himself down on the chair and settles her on his lap. He wraps both his arms around her waist and pulls her into his chest before he even realises what he’s doing. “Let’s do it, then.”

He’s barely paying attention to the screen. He’s mostly distracted by her hair, which is tickling his cheek a little, keeping him awake in the otherwise sleep-inducing darkness, and the fact that she’s sitting on his lap, her feet dangling over his knees, toes twisting back to curl around his calves, and she’s doing it so easily, without thinking, while it’s driving him absolutely _insane_. Kei instead focuses his heart to beat a little slower, but every time Yachi turns her head to ask him the next question in the quiz, her cheek brushes against his, and he has to take in a sharp breath before he can speak.

“Okay,” Yachi says, turning to look at him again, this time with her whole body, and it takes Kei all of his energy not to kiss her right then, “next question is: what makes you ridiculously, undeniably happy?”

“Um,” Kei says, sleep still tugging at his thoughts, and his body, and his eyes, “you?”

The smile on her face vanishes, and her small mouth morphs into an ‘O’. Her face turns a visible shade of red despite the dim lighting, and she cries out in a whimper, “Kei- _kunnnn_!”

“What?” Kei asks, startled. “What is it? Did I say something wrong?”

“That—you’re— _you_ —!” Yachi sputters, her face still bright red. Then, without warning, she dips her head and kisses him on the cheek, on the spot just at the corner of his mouth.

And just like that, his brain finally starts working. Kei purses his lips in a smirk, and meets her mouth with his own. He feels Yachi tense up in his arms. Kei pulls away, and sees her blushing even further, down to her neck, and he grins. He brings his hand to her jaw and pulls her into a deep kiss. Her hands wrap around his neck, and she shifts closer onto him so that their chests are pressed together.

When they pull away, they are both breathless. Her cheeks are still red, and he knows without a doubt that his own cheeks are, too. They stare at each other for a moment, a little shell-shocked, before they start to laugh nervously.

He takes in her half-lidded eyes, her cheeks and lips stained red, her long hair untameable and messy in the low light. Kei can’t believe it took him this long to _kiss_ her like this.

“Hitoka,” he breathes, darting his eyes downward so he can speak, because he’s almost sure he would kiss her again if he looks at her for too long. “Thank you.”

“For what?” Yachi tilts her head to one side, and it makes his heart lurch in his chest.

“For being here.” _Ah, screw it._ Kei leans forward and kisses her again. It becomes almost as easy as breathing. “For reminding me that I can be a little… dumb, sometimes.”

“Kei-kun! You’re _not_ —!” Yachi begins, but he quirks his brow at her once more. She nods. “Sometimes.”

He surges forward and presses his lips to hers again, and he curses himself again for not kissing her like this sooner; they could have been doing this _all the time_ but he’d wasted three months dawdling through their relationship. His lips stray to her jawline, her neck, and he’s going lower, lower—

And then Yachi starts giggling. Kei stops kissing her and pulls away, frowning.

“What’s so funny?”

“Ah…” Yachi is beet red in the face again, and she can barely stifle her laughter. “Kei-kun, it… ah… I don’t mean to… but it looks like something else woke up before you did.”

Kei freezes. He darts his eyes downward, and just now realises how _close_ Yachi is to him, her petite figure placed firmly on his lap, and for a horrifying moment, he pushes himself off his chair—and Yachi along with him—so they both topple to the ground. He feels his face heat up as he looks at Yachi, who is still giggling, and for a long moment, neither of them says anything.

“You kids okay?” Akiteru’s voice floats through the door, and they both spring apart. “I made dinner… if you’re not too busy, that is.”

“Coming right out,” Kei says, and in the same breath Yachi cries, “We—we’re not!”

They laugh nervously at each other again, and Kei pulls her up off the floor, pressing his palms gently on her shoulder to keep their distance while he steadies his breathing. It feels like they’ve skipped five stages of their relationship in one evening. _Oh, what the hell._ Kei bends down to kiss her one last time, savouring the moment, letting his lips linger, before he pulls away. She grins up at him.

“You’re coming to practice tomorrow, aren’t you, Kei-kun?”

“Yes,” he murmurs, and a smile spreads across his face. “I sure am.”


End file.
